Questions to Ask in a Design House Interview

I’ve been on the design house scene for the better part of a year now. As a new team member joins the company today, it brings to mind some questions I wish I would have asked prospective employers during my interview:

How often do developers get new workstations?

Do your devs have dual HD monitors?

How would you rate your office internet access on a scale of 1-10?

What does the process of reporting weekly time look like? Can I watch someone enter their time right now?

What versioning system will I be required to use for each project, if any?

What training & professional development resources do you offer? Does this include attending conferences?

Do I have the option of working on a Mac or are you PC only?

Can I speak with your best developer about the competency of your team on the whole?

When is the last time someone was fired, and what were they fired for?

Can you give a synopsis of the best project and worst project of this past year, and how they earned their titles?

Anyone else have questions they would have asked?

EDIT:

Here is another gem – “Describe a time when one of your teams made a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain?

One thought on “Questions to Ask in a Design House Interview”

I know a lot of people like to go to conferences at least once or twice a year, to be inspired by what’s now possible, or emerging.

Starting out working at a place with a training budget, that saw the value of investing in their workforce was important, especially if the team’s didn’t have the greatest mentoring program, or mentors in general.

In interviews I liked to flip the script even when I was starting out, for instance ask them where best case scenario they hope to see the candidate they choose for this position in 5 years…
Evaluations: obviously a leg up to know the criteria judged on, so can knock it out of the park, as well as maintain long term goals not just short term checklist.

I generally would/will ask about the any pain points hiring manager or lead developers have… Insightful for me, and also a possible hidden goal for me to alleviate / diminish that pain.